Polygraph All Public Officials

July 31, 2013, 3:33 AM Eastern US time . POLYGRAPH public officials. . WHY? . 1) As advocates for NSA spying on innocent Americans and innocent people in other countries always say: "If you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear." Well then, EVERY public official should be honored to support this idea, and even more honored to be depicted in association with this petition. What a FANTASTIC photo-op for the rising star in politics to be linked with this fantastic idea which, I am sure, over 90% of the public will support (even if the petition-throttlers who work for the political interests try to minimize, censor, block and sabotage this petition by signature-bouncing and all the other techniques we've seen recently.) . 2) Politicians are all eager-beaver to line up behind all legalistic attempts to honor the teaching profession by grandstanding ideas which require all teachers to be background checked, and by passing the same teaching background-check laws over and over again just so these politicians can photo-op their way to success, fame and fortune in the evening news. Other ways in which the teaching profession is honored is for teachers to be tarred, feathered and run out of town on a rail (electronically, mind you - so it's "nice" and modern - no real tar or burning crosses used in these cyberlynchings) for sending text messages which are harmless. Well then, let's have every politician reveal all of their e-mails and text messages too, and they can be subjected to the same honorable scrutiny as teachers. After all, if politicians have nothing to hide, they have nothing to fear, right? EVERY TEACHER and every teaching organization should ENDORSE THIS PROPOSAL and SIGN AND SHARE THIS PETITION! . 3) Public officials all take an Oath of Office on their own word of honor, to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. Their own word of honor once per year in a polygraph test will be a strong indicator of whether or not they believe they have been abiding by that Oath, and whether they intend to do so in the future. Of course, there may be those who are a little nervous and who fail the polygraph even though they pass the REAL test of performance, and there will also be those who - through lack of conscience or an abundance of sheer nerve, pass the test with flying colors even though they are lying through their teeth. But time will tell as well. . 4) Even if the politician or public servant or contractor or other public figure who takes the polygraph test FAILS the test, that isn't the end of the world. Check out this biography from Wikipedia, from which I have selected and slightly edited certain items: the article shows that despite failing a lie-detector test, a bureaucrat who becomes a politician can still rise to enduring greatness and a glorious legacy. (PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION NOW if you are pressed for time, and come back and read this amazing story which proves my point, later. Promise?) ............................................................... Francis Lazarro "Frank" Rizzo, Sr. (October 23, 1920 – July 16, 1991) was an American police officer and politician. He served two terms as mayor of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from January 1972 to January 1980; he was Police Commissioner for four years prior to that.

Police Commissioner

Rizzo joined the Philadelphia Police Department in the 1940s, rising through the ranks to become police commissioner in 1967. He served in that role during the turbulent years of 1967 to 1971, garnering a reputation as a tough, hands-on commissioner. One of the most well-known actions taken by Rizzo's police officers were the raids on the Philadelphia offices of the Black Panther Party on August 31, 1970. The raids took place just after the Black Panthers had declared war on police officers nationwide, and one week before the Panthers planned to convene a "People's Revolutionary Convention" at Temple University. The officers performed a strip search on the arrested Black Panther members in front of the news cameras after a Fairmount Park Police Officer had just been brutally murdered. The picture ran on the front page of the Philadelphia Daily News, and was seen around the world.

Rizzo's looming presence during the Columbia Avenue Riots is credited by many for keeping the lid on widespread looting and violence during that time of danger in Philadelphia, PA. Rizzo was personally responsible for the promotion of several black officers during his tenure as commissioner. While he was deputy police commissioner, practices that kept black officers from patrol cars were ended. It was during Rizzo's tenure as deputy commissioner in which officers assigned to the city's predominantly minority neighborhoods worked out of patrol cars in teams of one white and one black officer per car in an attempt to reduce friction between the citizens and police. As commissioner of the Philadelphia Police Department, Rizzo had one of the largest percentages of black officers among large U.S. police departments, with Guardian Civic League members comprising 20% of the department's officers in 1968, at a time when the police departments of other major US cities had little if any success in recruiting black officers. . Rizzo resigned as Police Commissioner in 1971 to run for Mayor of Philadelphia.

Election to first term: Rizzo was already functioning as mayor before his election. Toward the end of the term of Mayor James Tate, Tate publicly announced, on television and other media, that he was going to retire and that he was naming Frank Rizzo as "de facto" mayor of Philadelphia. In interviews on local television news programs, he was asked if this was legal and Tate laughed and said that he was retiring. In 1971, Rizzo faced three opponents for the 1971 Democratic mayoral nomination: Congressman William J. Green, a former Democratic city chairman; State Representative (later State Senator) Hardy Williams, and former City Councilman David Cohen (later a long serving councilman at large, from 1980 to his death in 2005). Cohen withdrew from the race and endorsed Green. Rizzo then won over Green and Williams. In the November election, Rizzo defeated former (and future) Councilman at Large and Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce President W. Thacher Longstreth. Rizzo, unlike his opponents, did not issue campaign position papers; he felt his slogan "Firm but Fair" explained his view of his role. Immediately following Rizzo's death in July 1991, Longstreth broke down and cried at the news of the death of his friend, Frank Rizzo. First term: From the start of his first term in office, Rizzo faced many political problems. The Evening Bulletin interviewed former Mayor and School Board President Richardson Dilworth about allegations he made in the San Francisco Chronicle that Rizzo had used the police for political espionage. Grateful for the positive publicity that local media had given him as police commissioner, Rizzo gave jobs to about two dozen local reporters. This apparent quid pro quo caused suspicion about Rizzo's previously good press. Two months after being sworn in, Rizzo endorsed Richard Nixon, a Republican, for re-election. In return for Rizzo's support, the victorious Nixon administration granted more federal funding to Philadelphia. However, Rizzo alienated many Democrats by his support of a candidate of the opposing party. The Democratic city committee, especially, viewed Rizzo's support of Nixon as a betrayal. Democratic Party Chairman Peter Camiel and many Democrats on the city council were also displeased with Rizzo's endorsement of President Nixon for re-election in 1972. Lie detector scandal: Rizzo's debacles with the media continued for some time into his first term. He was known for frequently holding press conferences, where he discussed various relevant and irrelevant matters, often in colorful language and a bombastic attitude. In one incident, after Rizzo was accused by Democratic Party Chairman Peter Camiel of offering Camiel patronage jobs in exchange for permitting Rizzo to choose the candidates for district attorney and city comptroller, Rizzo retorted that Camiel was a liar. One reporter from the Philadelphia Daily News asked Rizzo if he would submit to a polygraph test in order to prove that Camiel was lying. Rizzo agreed, as did Camiel. Rizzo was extremely confident that the test would come out in his favor. "If this machine says a man lied, he lied", Rizzo said famously before taking the test. However, the polygraph test revealed that Rizzo appeared to be lying about offering Camiel the positions in return for choosing candidates, and Camiel appeared to be truthful. (Afterward, Rizzo said that polygraph tests are unreliable, in street language.) Election to second term "Just wait after November you'll have a front row seat, because I'm going to make Attila the Hun look like a faggot." — Rizzo, during his 1975 reelection campaign.

In the 1975 Democratic primary, Rizzo defeated State Senator Louis G. Hill, Dilworth's nephew, who was supported by Camiel. In the November election, Rizzo defeated independent candidate Charles Bowser, a leading black Philadelphia attorney and former City Councilman-at-Large; and Thomas M. Foglietta, who later represented a large portion of the city in Congress.

An interesting feature of Rizzo's mayoralty was the establishment, with his complete approval, of a publicly funded "Anti-Defamation Agency" to combat pejorative jokes sometimes told about Philadelphia. The agency's most publicized action was a boycott of S.O.S. Soap Pads, after a television commercial aired nationwide in the summer of 1972 which included a disparaging reference to the city. The manufacturer withdrew the commercial. During Rizzo's terms as mayor, construction started on The Gallery at Market East shopping mall and the Center City Commuter Connection, a railroad commuter tunnel with a station right underneath the mall. The Philadelphia Gas Works, known locally as PGW, had been managed by a private company. During Rizzo's tenure, it was taken over by the city. PGW then implemented senior citizens discounts, generous municipal labor contracts and the expansion of patronage hiring. Formerly considered one of the best-managed municipal utilities in the United States, it later became a long-running fiscal and corrupt embarrassment to the city. During Rizzo's second term, two reporters at The Philadelphia Inquirer, William K. Marimow and Jon Neuman, began a long series about incidents of police brutality that allegedly had been covered up by the police department. The series won a Pulitzer Prize for the Inquirer. Tax increase and recall attempt: In his successful 1975 mayoral campaign, Rizzo campaigned under the slogan, "He held the line on taxes." Then, almost immediately after the election, he got the City Council to increase the city's wage tax from 3.31% to 4.31%, one of the highest in the nation. The juxtaposition of the campaign slogan, which had dominated the airwaves, mailboxes, and telephone poles of the city for months, with the record tax increase infuriated Rizzo's opponents and led fiscal conservatives to join them. The Philadelphia city charter contained a provision for a recall, if 25% of the registered voters signed recall petitions. Americans for Democratic Action, the liberal activist group that had played a key role in moving Philadelphia from Republican to Democratic control in the late 1940s and early 1950s,[citation needed] took the lead in gathering the needed signatures. The committee to recall Rizzo methodically organized the wards of the city, and shocked political professionals by gathering well over the 250,000 signatures required. The campaign to recall Rizzo attracted many thousands of volunteers and millions of dollars in campaign contributions. Polls showed Rizzo losing by a wide margin. Rizzo's allies counterattacked by challenging the validity of the signatures. They also challenged the constitutionality of the recall procedure itself. Then the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, by a one vote margin, declared the Charter's recall provision to be unconstitutional. The decision was written by Chief Justice Robert N.C. Nix, the first African-American judge elected to the State Supreme Court with Rizzo's support in 1971. Rizzo opponents, while greatly disheartened, elected Ed Rendell as District Attorney in 1977 . Reporter Robert R. Frump recalled that Rizzo would frequently say, with long pauses in the last part of his sentences, "My opponents are saying 'Vote Black! I say....vote....your mind!" Rizzo was also known for saying: "The streets in Philadelphia are safe. It's the people who make them dangerous." Post-mayoral career:

Between 1983 and 1986, Rizzo served as a security consultant at The Philadelphia Gas Works, and hosted one of Philadelphia's most popular radio talk shows, a tradition later emulated by his son, Republican City Councilman Frank L. Rizzo, Jr. During his time at PGW, he saved the utility over 3 million dollars by curbing the theft of gas. Rizzo had been a Republican until the Dilworth Administration, then a Democrat while mayor, even while supporting Richard Nixon; he ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for mayor in 1983, losing in a close primary election to Wilson Goode, who then became Philadelphia's first black mayor, known for his ordering the bombing of Osage Avenue in 1985 - which Rizzo roundly criticized. In 1986, Rizzo switched again to the Republican Party, and ran as a Republican in the mayoral election of 1987, and set out to do so again in 1991. In 1991, Rizzo won the Republican primary against former Philadelphia District Attorney (now chief justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court) Ron Castille, in a hardball campaign where Rizzo made accusations about Castille's drinking habits and his veracity. Rizzo's win brought some rumblings of a last political hurrah, with Rizzo vowing to break stereotypes associated with his political legacy, and vowing specifically to campaign in black neighborhoods (which, in fact, Rizzo did). On the Friday before his death, he walked through the predominantly black West Philadelphia 52nd Street neighborhood with community leaders. For the November contest against the Democratic candidate, former District Attorney (and later two-term Pennsylvania governor) Ed Rendell, there were also expectations that Rizzo would again employ hardball tactics. On July 16, 1991, Rizzo died in his campaign office of a massive heart attack shortly after his primary victory. He was pronounced dead upon arrival at 2:12 p.m. EDT at Thomas Jefferson Hospital in Philadelphia. . Rendell went on to win the November election and serve two terms as mayor. . End Of An Era In Philadelphia: Rizzo's funeral was large, with tens of thousands of people lining the streets of the motorcade from the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul to the cemetery. There was no funeral larger than Rizzo's in the history of Philadelphia, as people lined the streets five deep from the Cathedral to the cemetery north of Mount Airy. A statue of Mayor Rizzo waving one of his arms in greeting, created by Zeno Frudakis, stands in front of Philadelphia's Municipal Services Building. The 10-foot-high statue was paid for by contributions from Rizzo's family, friends, and supporters. Also, in his stronghold neighborhood of South Philadelphia, where he received a great deal of Italian-American support, a mural portrait of Rizzo is located on the 9th Street Italian Market. . Biographies include: "The Cop Who Would Be King", by Philadelphia Bulletin journalists Joseph R. Daughen & Peter Binzen, is widely considered an authoritative account of Frank Rizzo's rise to power. Sal Paolantonio's "Rizzo: The Last Big Man In Big City America" is the current definitive biography. Phyllis Kaniss' book, "The Media and the Mayor's Race", is an analysis of local journalistic coverage of the campaign, detailing Rizzo's last political campaign up until his death; it contains details on the political hardball he played against Castille, and planned to play against Rendell.

Rizzo had a tremendous impact on Philadelphia politics as an extremely polarizing and colorful figure. Philadelphians were either extreme supporters or detractors. Rizzo's politics were primarily in the conservative wing of the Democratic party. His political appeal, however, transcended political parties. His switch from the Democratic party to the Republican party spawned a political term, "Rizzocrats"— eople who would follow Rizzo regardless of party affiliation.

Rizzo had a controversial relationship with the media. He sparred with beat reporters, and yet hired several into city posts after his re-election in 1975. Reporter Andrea Mitchell, in her book "Talking Back", and Larry Kane, in his book "Larry Kane's Philadelphia", both stated that when they heard about Rizzo's death, they broke down and cried. ......................................................................... This is how the article ends - and thus ends the life story of an American who was larger than life, in a sense that his story, with its ups and downs, is both a clear call to duty according to the virtues of our true strengths and a clear warning as to our weaknesses; because the story of Frank Rizzo is also the story of America. . Scott Davis Chairman Committee of 37 Peace Initiative PO Box 877 Edgmont, PA 19028-0877 USA